primotipo…

Tonino Ascari attends a race-drivers school at Monza, 3 May 1966…

Tonino was the son of 1952-3 World Champion Alberto Ascari and grandson of pre-war great Antonio Ascari, here pictured with his dad at Modena in November 1953.

 

Inevitably the lure of racing with such a background is strong…

In 1960, aged 18- 5 years after Alberto’s death at Monza in a Ferrari sports-car testing accident Tonino’s mother sent him to work for Jaguar at Coventry to learn English.

He returned to Milan and was employed in Gigi Villoresi’s Innocenti-Mini Agency, he then became involved in the construction of FJ 1 litre cars incuding Stanguellini and Foglietti.

In August 1963, upon turning 21, he inherited some money and drove a Formula Junior belonging to Angelo Dagrada at Monza. By October he was at the Vallelunga race school driving a 2.5 litre Ferrari, a month later Tonino was at Modena taking lessons in a 2 litre Cooper-Maserati sportscar owned by his father’s old rival, Piero Taruffi, whose idea it was to create a small stable of young pilots- Scuderia Centro-Sud. Also taking lessons at the time was Farina’s nephew.

 

Ascari ‘had just one season of serious racing’, on April 15 1964 Enzo Vigorelli announced that Tonino would race a Foglietti-Holbay F3 car for two years for Scuderia Madunina.

In 1964 he was entered at Monza in a Foglietti, a ‘Brabhamesque’ spaceframe car on 7 May for DNA and on 28 June at the ‘Monza Lotteria’, DNQ. He was twelfth at Monza’s ‘Coppa del Autodromo’ on 27 September 1964, Geki Russo won this race in a de-Sanctis Ford.

In 1966 Ascari raced a self entered Lotus Ford (the car shown perhaps) at Monza in the Trofeo Vigorelli on 1 May, DNQ and the same car a week later in the GP del Garda, at Garda again DNQ- that seems to be the end of his racing.

‘The pressure to live up to the family name, his mother keen for him to quit and a dislike of his sponsors desire to exploit the Ascari name, led to him quitting’ wrote historicracing.com.

Born 2 August 1942 in Milan, he died of cardio-respiratory problems in Gazzada Schianno on 24 August 2008.

La Gazzetta dello Sport reported Tonino’s death on 25 August 2008 and wrote that ‘he spent his life in the motor world in FJ and F3, then motocross. A great friend of Mario Andretti, a supporter of his father, he was among the partners of Hiro, which produced cross-country engines and followed the family tradition of car dealership, two weeks ago he participated in an historic rally at the Nurburgring.’

Credits…

Phillippe Le Tellier, historicracing.com, La Gazzetto della Sport

Tailpiece…

Etcetera…

Oscar Cesar ‘Cacho’ Fangio, left, with Tonino at Monza in 1966.

Fangio, in an extensive racing career did some F3 racing in Europe in 1966, this is perhaps the Monza Lotteria meeting on 26 June when Fangio was thirteenth in a Charles Lucas Brabham BT15 Ford- one place behind Frank Willams Brabham BT15. Up-front Jonathon Williams won in a de-Sanctis Ford on his way to a Ferrari ride.

Fangio and his girlfriend Andreaina Berruet, with whom he broke up in 1960, had a son, Oscar Cesar Espinosa.

Whilst close to Oscar for some time the relationship between father and son soured in the years prior to JMF’s death in 1995. He was acknowledged, after exhumation of JMF’s body, as Fangio’s son by an Argentinian court in December 2015.

For the sake of completeness, Ruben Vazquez born four years after Espinosa to another woman was also recognised by the same court as Fangio’s son.

‘Cacho’ Fangio and Chas Lucas Brabham BT10 Ford Cosworth F3 during the 1966 Argentinian Temporada Series, he was seventh overall, his best  placing third in the final round, the series won by Charlie Crichton-Stuart’s BT10.

And below with JMF lending his support.

Finito…